So who are these fine readers? And why are they the Godfathers of Rochester Poetry? That’s because Steve Huff does significant work at the epicenter of the Rochester literary scene – Writers & Books. And Ralph Black co-runs the long running (if not longest running in the United States) reading series – The Writers Forum at SUNY Brockport. So all poetry in the Rochester area must first go through them. Or else!

Here’s more about them.

Before Ralph Black became a respectable citizen of Western New York: he delivered The Washington Post to Spiro Agnew (after Agnew resigned from office). He cleaned carpets in government buildings in the nation’s capital. He was Fritz in the Nutcracker. He painted houses in Maine. He waited tables at a swank Italian restaurant that turned out to be a front for a Mafia-led cocaine operation. He hitchhiked to Williamsburg, VA, on a school day, to interview a craftsman who made miniature replicas of Viking ships. He ate peyote buttons while sitting in a cave in the Shenandoahs. He was bounced on Isaac Stern’s knee. He stole a 20 lb. tin of cashews from the deli where he worked. He fought fires for the Forest Service in Idaho. He nearly fell off a mountain in the backcountry in the Olympics. Ditto for a cliff in Maine. Ditto for a cliff in Virginia. Presently, he lives in Monroe Co., NY, where cliffs are few and far between.

Steven Huff is the author of two books of poems, most recently More Daring Escapes, and a collection of stories,A Pig in Paris. A Pushcart Prize winner in fiction, and an O.Henry Prize finalist, his poetry has been read on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, and been chosen by form US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser for his American Life in Poetry feature news column. He is Director of Adult Education and Programs at Writers & Books, and teaches writing at RIT, and in the Solstice MFA Program at Pine Manor College in Boston. From 2002 through 2008 he was host of Fiction in Shorts, a regular feature on WXXI-FM and WJSL-FM.